Systems and methods for asynchronous communication

ABSTRACT

In accordance with the present disclosure, a method may initiate communications over an synchronous communication channel between first and second computing devices and a second computing device. Responsive to the communications being discontinued on the synchronous communication channel, a context of communications exchanged between the first and second computing devices in the synchronous communication channel may be retained. An asynchronous message may be received from the first computing device, the asynchronous message being directed to the second computing device. Invitations may be sent to the first and second computing devices inviting the first and second computing devices to rejoin the synchronous communication channel. In response to the first and second computing devices rejoining the synchronous communication channel, the context of communications previously exchanged between the first and second computing devices in the synchronous communication channel may be retrieved and presented to the first and second computing devices.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of, claims priority to and thebenefit of, U.S. Ser. No. 16/600,737 filed Oct. 14, 2019 and entitled“SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR ASYNCHRONOUS COMMUNICATION,” which is acontinuation of, claims priority to and the benefit of, U.S. Ser. No.15/081,010 filed Mar. 25, 2016 and entitled “SYSTEMS AND METHODS FORASYNCHRONOUS COMMUNICATION,” both of which are hereby incorporated byreference in their entirety for all purposes.

FIELD

The present disclosure relates to systems and methods for asynchronouscommunication using text-based chat.

BACKGROUND

Customer service platforms may interact with customers using synchronouscommunication channels or asynchronous channels. However, currentsystems are not typically equipped to allow for the option betweensynchronous and asynchronous interactions.

Synchronous channels (e.g., voice communication or chat windows) operatewith both parties present at the time of communication. For synchronouscommunication channels, customers encounter problems such as waiting onhold, being available for a call back, dropping calls, or otherwiseproviding their undivided attention to the customer servicerepresentative on the other end.

Furthermore, customer service platforms may connect and disconnectcustomers and service agents on a synchronous basis while both partiesare present. After one or more parties disconnect the context of thecommunication such as text history and timestamps, for example, may belost. A customer may have to rehash previous communication and otherwiseupdate a new service representative with each connection.

Asynchronous channels such as email allow communication with the partiespresent over varying time periods. However, asynchronous communicationchannels may cause the customer inconveniences such as long delay timebetween communications, particularly when the customer is looking for afast answer.

SUMMARY

A system, method, and computer readable medium (collectively, the“system”) is disclosed for communicating with selectively asynchronousand synchronous communication channels. In various embodiments, thesystem may receive a first message transmitted over a network from afirst device. A first invitation to join a text-based communicationchannel may be transmitted to the first device. A second invitation maybe transmitted to a second device to join the text-based communicationchannel, while the server is configured to retain the context of thetext-based communication channel. The system may receive a secondmessage transmitted from the second device and may transmit a thirdinvitation to the first device to join the text-based communicationchannel, in response to the second message.

In various embodiments, the third invitation transmitted by the systemmay include a push notification. The system may retrieve the context ofthe text-based communication channel in response to the second messageand may transmit the context of the text-based communication channel tothe first device and/or or the second device. The text-basedcommunication channel may be, for example, an XMPP room. Context of thetext-based communication channel may include details such as texthistory, a timestamp, or a user name. The system may transmit the thirdinvitation by communicating with an application and/or a web-basedapplication running on the first device.

The forgoing features and elements may be combined in variouscombinations without exclusivity, unless expressly indicated hereinotherwise. These features and elements as well as the operation of thedisclosed embodiments will become more apparent in light of thefollowing description and accompanying drawings.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION

The subject matter of the present disclosure is particularly pointed outand distinctly claimed in the concluding portion of the specification. Amore complete understanding of the present disclosure, however, may beobtained by referring to the detailed description and claims whenconsidered in connection with the drawing figures, wherein like numeralsdenote like elements.

FIG. 1 illustrates an exemplary system for synchronous and asynchronouschat communications between a customer and a customer servicerepresentative, in accordance with various embodiments;

FIG. 2 illustrates an exemplary process for executing selectivelysynchronous or asynchronous communication between a customer andcustomer service representative, in accordance with various embodiments;and

FIG. 3 illustrates an exemplary process for a server to provide atext-based communication channel having persistent context, inaccordance with various embodiments.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The detailed description of various embodiments herein makes referenceto the accompanying drawings and pictures, which show variousembodiments by way of illustration. While these various embodiments aredescribed in sufficient detail to enable those skilled in the art topractice the disclosure, it should be understood that other embodimentsmay be realized and that logical and mechanical changes may be madewithout departing from the spirit and scope of the disclosure. Thus, thedetailed description herein is presented for purposes of illustrationonly and not of limitation. For example, the steps recited in any of themethod or process descriptions may be executed in any order and are notlimited to the order presented. Moreover, any of the functions or stepsmay be outsourced to or performed by one or more third parties.Furthermore, any reference to singular includes plural embodiments, andany reference to more than one component may include a singularembodiment.

The systems and methods for asynchronous and synchronous communicationdisclosed herein enable customers to selectively use synchronous orasynchronous channels for text-based communication. Customer servicerepresentatives may also re-engage customers in-channel (i.e., thechannel in which communication started) as the customer servicerepresentative becomes available using presently disclosed systems. Pastcommunication histories may be maintained so that any customer servicerepresentative that picks up a case can have the up-to-datecommunication history and provide further assistance in the context ofpast conversations. Thus, customer service providers are able tocommunicate contextually, conveniently, and instantly with consumers atthe convenience of consumers.

With reference to FIG. 1, system 100 for text-based communication isshown, in accordance with various embodiments. System 100 facilitatestext-based communication between user device 102 and agent device 106with server 104 acting as an intermediary. User device 102, server 104,and/or agent device 106 may be any electronic device (e.g., personalcomputing device/mobile communication device) which communicates via anynetwork and/or via a short-range wireless protocol such as, for example,Bluetooth® or an IEEE 802.11 standard. A web client or dedicatedapplication may be associated with and/or used by any combination ofuser device 102, agent device 106, server 104. In this regard, a webclient may comprise a variety of browsing software or browserapplications (e.g., Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, GoogleChrome, Apple Safari, a dedicated micro-application, or any othersuitable software packages available for communicating over a network103, network 105, and/or other communication channels). Such browserapplications may comprise network-capable software installed within acomputing unit or a system to conduct online transactions and/orcommunications. These computing units or systems may take the form of acomputer or processor, or a set of computers/processors, although othertypes of computing units or systems may be used, including laptops,notebooks, servers, hand held computers, personal digital assistants,cellular phones, smart phones (e.g., iPhone®, BlackBerry®, Droid®, etc.)tablets such as iPads, wearable computing devices such as smart watchesor smart glasses, or any suitable device capable of receiving data overnetwork 103 and/or network 105.

As those skilled in the art will appreciate, a customer or merchantdevice may include an operating system (e.g., Windows NT,95/98/2000/CE/Mobile, OS2, UNIX, Linux, Solaris, iOS, etc.) as well asvarious conventional support software and drivers typically associatedwith computers. A customer or merchant device may implement securityprotocols such as Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) and Transport LayerSecurity (TLS) for communication over a network. Any device used insystem 100 may also implement one or more application layer protocols,including, for example, HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, XMPP, and/or SFTP.

In various embodiments, server 104 may be configured to providemessaging, presence, and routing features. In that regard, server 104may comprise an XMPP (extensible messaging and presence protocol) serverhaving extended functionality beyond standard XMPP functionality.Systems and methods of the present disclosure may thus implement XMPPand accompanying functionality as documented at http://xmpp.org/rfcs/,which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety. The XMPPsystems implemented on server 104 may extend the XMPP protocol toimplement the functionality described in greater detail below. Theextended XMPP protocol may enable server 104 to provide bothasynchronous and synchronous text-based communication between a customerusing user device 102 and a customer service representative using agentsystem 106. Server 104 may also operate as a chat server using a customprotocol that does not extend XMPP.

In various embodiments, user device 102 may send and receive messagesover network 103 with server 104. Network 103 and/or network 105 mayinclude a wide area network, such as the Internet, or local areanetwork. Network 103 and/or network 105 may also include othercommunication channels such as Bluetooth® or IEEE 802.11 standards, forexample.

In various embodiments, server 104 may also send notification messagesto service provider push notification services 108. Service providerpush notification services and server 104 may both be behind a firewall107 relative to network 103. Service provider push notification services108 may then send the push notification message to user device pushnotification services 110. If appropriate, user device push notificationservices 110 may send a push notification to user device 102. Server 104may further communicate with agent device 106 over network 105. Agentsystem 106 may also be behind firewall 107 relative to network 103.

Firewall 107 may include any hardware and/or software suitablyconfigured to protect server 104, agent device 106, and any othercomponents operated by components and/or enterprise computing resourcesfrom users of other networks. Further, a firewall may be configured tolimit or restrict access to various systems and components behind thefirewall for web clients connecting through a web server. Firewall mayreside in varying configurations including Stateful Inspection, Proxybased, access control lists, and Packet Filtering among others. Firewallmay be integrated within a web server or any other CMS components or mayfurther reside as a separate entity. A firewall may implement networkaddress translation (“NAT”) and/or network address port translation(“NAPT”). A firewall may accommodate various tunneling protocols tofacilitate secure communications, such as those used in virtual privatenetworking. A firewall may be integrated as software within an Internetserver, any other application server components or may reside withinanother computing device or may take the form of a standalone hardwarecomponent.

Referring now to FIG. 2, process 200 for providing asynchronous and/orsynchronous text-based communication on a system similar to system 100of FIG. 1 is shown, in accordance with various embodiments. A customermay send a message to server 104 (Step 202). User device 102 may sendthe message to server 104 using a text-based communication protocol suchas, for example, XMPP. In response to receiving the message from theuser device 102, server 104 may send an indication to agent device 106that a customer requested text communication (Step 204).

In various embodiments, server 104 may invite user device 102 to enter atext-based communication channel with an agent (Step 206). Server 104may send the invitation over network 103. The invitation may include apush notification on user device 102 using the push notificationservices described with reference to FIG. 1. Server 104 may maintain thetext-based communication channel and keep a history of text-basedcommunications sent over the communication channel. As used herein, a“text-based communication channel” may refer to an XMPP room (or anysuitable type of XMPP object) configured to retain context of thecommunications sent on the channel. For example, context may includetime stamps, user names, historic messages, users joining the channel,users leaving the channel, or other information that at least partiallycaptures the state of previous communication on the channel. The contextmay be retained by server 104 across connects, disconnects, and/orreconnects. Server 104 may store context and text-based communicationchannels using, for example, a database and/or an extended XMPP class.

In various embodiments, server 104 may also invite agent device 106 toenter the text-based communication channel with a user (Step 208).Server 104 may transmit the invitation to agent device 106 over network105. The invitations may be distributed to user device 102 and/or agentdevice 106 in any order. User device 102 may join the text-basedcommunication channel (Step 210). Agent device 106 may also join thetext-based communication channel (Step 212). Agent device 106 and/oruser device 102 may join the text-based channel in various orders suchas, for example, user device 102 first, agent device 106 first, orconcurrently.

In various embodiments, server 104 may detect user device 102 in thetext-based communication channel and agent device 106 in the text-basedcommunication channel. In response to both user device 102 and agentdevice 106 detected in the channel, server 104 may provide synchronoustext-based communication between user device 102 and agent device 106.User device 102 and agent device 106 may communicate in real-time acrossthe open text-based communication channel maintained by server 104.

In various embodiments, user device 102 may leave the text-basedcommunication channel (Step 214). User device 102 may leave the channelin response to closing an application running on user device 102 thatprovided the interface to the text-based communication channel. Userdevice 102 may also leave the channel in response to user device 102power cycling. User device 102 may also leave the channel in response toclosing the channel using an in-application interface. In response touser device 102 leaving the channel, server 104 may retain the texthistory of text-based communication sent across the channel as well asany other context associated with the text-based communication sentacross the channel. Server 104 may also retain an identifier for userdevice 102 such as a device ID, MAC address, device signature, telephonenumber, or other device identification. Server 104 may reconnect userdevice 102 to the text-based communication channel containing the texthistory of the channel. Server 104 may also retain user identifierassociated with the text-based communication channel, such as a username, to reconnect the user to the text-based communication channel inresponse to the user logging in to a user device 102.

In various embodiments, agent device 106 may leave the text-basedcommunication channel (Step 216). Server 104 may retain the text historyof text-based communication sent across the channel in response to agentdevice 106 leaving the channel.

In various embodiments, agent device 106 may re-join the text-basedcommunication channel maintained by server 104 (Step 218). Agent devicemay re-join the text-based communication channel instantaneously afterleaving the channel, an hour after leaving the channel, a day afterleaving the channel, a week after leaving the channel, or any other timeperiod after leaving the channel. A predetermined time may be set afterwhich a dormant text-based communication channel may be reset ordeleted. Text-based communication channels may also be retainedindefinitely and made available for re-joining by user device 102 and/oragent device 106 as well as archiving.

In various embodiments, agent device 106 may send a message to a userand/or user device 102 (Step 220). In response to receiving the messagefrom agent device 106, server 104 may reinitialize the text-basedcommunication channel. Re-initialization may include retrieving and/ortransmitting the text communication history of the text-basedcommunication channel. Reinitializing may also include reestablishingconnections to agent device 106 and/or user device 102. Reestablishingconnections to agent device 106 and/or user device 102 may includeopening a TCP connection to agent device 106 and/or user device 102. Inthat regard, server 104 may establish a secure electronic communicationconnection to user device 102 and/or agent device 106.

In various embodiments, server 104 may invite a user and/or user device102 to join the text-based communication channel in response to the userbeing logged in to an application running on user device 102 configuredto interface with the text-based communication channel (Step 222).Server 104 may invite the user and/or user device 102 to join thetext-based communication channel in response to the user being logged into a web-based application running on a browser of user device 102 andconfigured to interface with the text-based communication channel.Server 104 may extend the invitation by sending a message over theapplication or web-based application that the text-based communicationchannel is available for asynchronous communication.

In various embodiments, server 104 may invite user and/or user device102 to join the text-based communication channel in response to a userbeing logged out of an application, the application being closed, theuser device being powered down, or user and/or user device 102 beingotherwise unavailable (Step 224). The invitation may be extended usingpush services such as service provider push notification services 108and/or user device push notification services 110 of system 100.

In various embodiments, the user and/or user device 102 may join thetext-based communication channel in response to an invitation (e.g., theinvitation of step 222 and/or the invitation of step 224). User device102 may reengage in electronic communication with server 104 and agentdevice 106 by joining the previously retained text-based communicationchannel provided by server 104.

Referring now to FIGS. 1 and 3, a process 300 for providing text-basedcommunication with persistent context between two or more electronicdevices is shown, in accordance with various embodiments. Process 300may be executed by server 104 of system 100, for example. Server 104 mayreceive a message transmitted over network 103 from a user device 102(Step 302). Server 104 may be operating as an XMPP server and receivethe message using XMPP. In response to receiving the message, server 104may create a text-based communication channel (e.g., an XMPP room).Communication on the text-based channel may be written to the XMPP room.In that regard, in response to a party joining the text-basedcommunication channel (e.g., the XMPP room), communications previouslywritten to the text-based communication channel may be available for theparty to review. For text-based communication channels based on XMPP,XMPP classes may be extended to provide the contextual retentionbehavior and/or room queuing behavior.

In various embodiments, server 104 may transmit an invitation to jointhe text-based communication channel to the first device (Step 304). Theinvitation may include a push notification, a greeting message,automatically joining the first device to the text-based communicationchannel, or another suitable response from server 104. Server 104 mayalso transmit an invitation to a second device to join the text-basedcommunication channel (Step 306). In that regard, server 104 mayinitiate communication using synchronous communication with the firstdevice and the second device present in the text-based communicationchannel. The server may retain context of the text-based communicationchannel such as prior messages, time stamps, user names of connectingand/or disconnecting parties, and other suitable historic context. Inthat regard, context may persist through connection and disconnection ofparties such that the context may be regenerated and revisited uponsubsequent connections. The first device and/or second device maydisconnect from the text-based communication channel. After the devicesdisconnect server 104 may continue to retain context of communicationsover the text-based communication channel so that parties may joinand/or re-join the channel at a later time.

In various embodiments, the server may receive a message transmittedfrom the second device (Step 308). The message from the second devicemay be an asynchronous message to the first device or the user of thefirst device (e.g., the first device may be disconnected from thetext-based communication channel, or the user of the first device mayhave the interface to the communication channel minimized). The messagefrom the second device may be a synchronous message if the user ispresently focused on an application interfacing with the text-basedcommunication channel (e.g., the user has not disconnected).

In various embodiments, server 104 may transmit an invitation to thefirst device to join or re-join the text-based communication channel inresponse to the second message (Step 310). The invitation may include apush notification using service provider push notification service 108and/or user device push notification services 110. The invitation mayalso include a message transmitted by server 104 to an applicationand/or web-based application running on the first device. Server 104 mayalso retrieve the context of the text-based communication in response tothe message for transmitting to the first device and/or the seconddevice.

Systems, methods and computer program products are provided. In thedetailed description herein, references to “various embodiments”, “oneembodiment”, “an embodiment”, “an example embodiment”, etc., indicatethat the embodiment described may include a particular feature,structure, or characteristic, but every embodiment may not necessarilyinclude the particular feature, structure, or characteristic. Moreover,such phrases are not necessarily referring to the same embodiment.Further, when a particular feature, structure, or characteristic isdescribed in connection with an embodiment, it is submitted that it iswithin the knowledge of one skilled in the art to affect such feature,structure, or characteristic in connection with other embodimentswhether or not explicitly described. After reading the description, itwill be apparent to one skilled in the relevant art(s) how to implementthe disclosure in alternative embodiments.

As used herein, “satisfy”, “meet”, “match”, “associated with”,“identified with” or similar phrases may include an identical match, apartial match, meeting certain criteria, matching a subset of data, acorrelation, satisfying certain criteria, a correspondence, anassociation, an algorithmic relationship and/or the like. Similarly, asused herein, “authenticate” or similar terms may include an exactauthentication, a partial authentication, authenticating a subset ofdata, a correspondence, satisfying certain criteria, an association, analgorithmic relationship and/or the like.

Phrases and terms similar to an “party” may include any individual,consumer, customer, customer service agent, customer service provider,group, business, organization, government entity, transaction accountissuer or processor (e.g., credit, charge, etc.), merchant, consortiumof merchants, account holder, charitable organization, software,hardware, and/or any other type of entity.

Terms and phrases similar to “associate” and/or “associating” mayinclude tagging, flagging, correlating, using a look-up table or anyother method or system for indicating or creating a relationship betweenelements, such as, for example, (i) a transaction account and (ii) anitem (e.g., offer, reward, discount) and/or digital channel. Moreover,the associating may occur at any point, in response to any suitableaction, event, or period of time. The associating may occur atpre-determined intervals, periodic, randomly, once, more than once, orin response to a suitable request or action. Any of the information maybe distributed and/or accessed via a software enabled link, wherein thelink may be sent via a text-based communication channel.

Any communication, transmission and/or channel discussed herein mayinclude any system or method for delivering content (e.g. data,information, metadata, etc.), and/or the content itself. The content maybe presented in any form or medium, and in various embodiments, thecontent may be delivered electronically and/or capable of beingpresented electronically. For example, a channel may comprise a websiteor device (e.g., Facebook, YOUTUBE®, APPLE®TV®, PANDORA®, XBOX®, SONY®PLAYSTATION®), a uniform resource locator (“URL”), a document (e.g., aMICROSOFT® Word® document, a MICROSOFT® Excel® document, an ADOBE® .pdfdocument, etc.), an “ebook,” an “emagazine,” an application ormicroapplication (as described herein), an SMS or other type of textmessage, an email, facebook, twitter, MMS and/or other type ofcommunication technology. In various embodiments, a channel may behosted or provided by a data partner. In various embodiments, thedistribution channel may comprise at least one of a merchant website, asocial media website, affiliate or partner websites, an external vendor,a mobile device communication, social media network and/or locationbased service. Distribution channels may include at least one of amerchant website, a social media site, affiliate or partner websites, anexternal vendor, and a mobile device communication. Examples of socialmedia sites include FACEBOOK®, FOURSQUARE®, TWITTER®, MYSPACE®,LINKEDIN®, and the like. Examples of affiliate or partner websitesinclude AMERICAN EXPRESS®, GROUPON®, LIVINGSOCIAL®, and the like.Moreover, examples of mobile device communications include texting,email, and mobile applications for smartphones.

In various embodiments, the methods described herein are implementedusing the various particular machines described herein. The methodsdescribed herein may be implemented using the below particular machines,and those hereinafter developed, in any suitable combination, as wouldbe appreciated immediately by one skilled in the art. Further, as isunambiguous from this disclosure, the methods described herein mayresult in various transformations of certain articles.

For the sake of brevity, conventional data networking, applicationdevelopment and other functional aspects of the systems (and componentsof the individual operating components of the systems) may not bedescribed in detail herein. Furthermore, the connecting lines shown inthe various figures contained herein are intended to represent exemplaryfunctional relationships and/or physical couplings between the variouselements. It should be noted that many alternative or additionalfunctional relationships or physical connections may be present in apractical system.

The various system components discussed herein may include one or moreof the following: a host server or other computing systems including aprocessor for processing digital data; a memory coupled to the processorfor storing digital data; an input digitizer coupled to the processorfor inputting digital data; an application program stored in the memoryand accessible by the processor for directing processing of digital databy the processor; a display device coupled to the processor and memoryfor displaying information derived from digital data processed by theprocessor; and a plurality of databases. Various databases used hereinmay include: client data; merchant data; financial institution data;and/or like data useful in the operation of the system. As those skilledin the art will appreciate, user computer may include an operatingsystem (e.g., WINDOWS®, OS2, UNIX®, LINUX®, SOLARIS®, MacOS, etc.) aswell as various conventional support software and drivers typicallyassociated with computers.

The present system or any part(s) or function(s) thereof may beimplemented using hardware, software or a combination thereof and may beimplemented in one or more computer systems or other processing systems.However, the manipulations performed by embodiments were often referredto in terms, such as matching or selecting, which are commonlyassociated with mental operations performed by a human operator. No suchcapability of a human operator is necessary, or desirable in most cases,in any of the operations described herein. Rather, the operations may bemachine operations. Useful machines for performing the variousembodiments include general purpose digital computers or similardevices.

In fact, in various embodiments, the embodiments are directed toward oneor more computer systems capable of carrying out the functionalitydescribed herein. The computer system includes one or more processors,such as processor. The processor is connected to a communicationinfrastructure (e.g., a communications bus, cross-over bar, or network).Various software embodiments are described in terms of this exemplarycomputer system. After reading this description, it will become apparentto a person skilled in the relevant art(s) how to implement variousembodiments using other computer systems and/or architectures. Computersystem can include a display interface that forwards graphics, text, andother data from the communication infrastructure (or from a frame buffernot shown) for display on a display unit.

Computer system also includes a main memory, such as for example randomaccess memory (RAM), and may also include a secondary memory. Thesecondary memory may include, for example, a hard disk drive and/or aremovable storage drive, representing a floppy disk drive, a magnetictape drive, an optical disk drive, etc. The removable storage drivereads from and/or writes to a removable storage unit in a well-knownmanner. Removable storage unit represents a floppy disk, magnetic tape,optical disk, etc. which is read by and written to by removable storagedrive. As will be appreciated, the removable storage unit includes acomputer usable storage medium having stored therein computer softwareand/or data.

In various embodiments, secondary memory may include other similardevices for allowing computer programs or other instructions to beloaded into computer system. Such devices may include, for example, aremovable storage unit and an interface. Examples of such may include aprogram cartridge and cartridge interface (such as that found in videogame devices), a removable memory chip (such as an erasable programmableread only memory (EPROM), or programmable read only memory (PROM)) andassociated socket, and other removable storage units and interfaces,which allow software and data to be transferred from the removablestorage unit to computer system.

Computer system may also include a communications interface.Communications interface allows software and data to be transferredbetween computer system and external devices. Examples of communicationsinterface may include a modem, a network interface (such as an Ethernetcard), a communications port, a Personal Computer Memory CardInternational Association (PCMCIA) slot and card, wireless IEEE 802.11wireless chip, etc. Software and data transferred via communicationsinterface are in the form of signals which may be electronic,electromagnetic, optical or other signals capable of being received bycommunications interface. These signals are provided to communicationsinterface via a communications path (e.g., channel). This channelcarries signals and may be implemented using wire, cable, fiber optics,a telephone line, a cellular link, a radio frequency (RF) link, wirelessand other communications channels.

The terms “computer program medium” and “computer usable medium” and“computer readable medium” are used to generally refer to media such asremovable storage drive and a hard disk installed in hard disk drive.These computer program products provide software to computer system.

Computer programs (also referred to as computer control logic) arestored in main memory and/or secondary memory. Computer programs mayalso be received via communications interface. Such computer programs,when executed, enable the computer system to perform the features asdiscussed herein. In particular, the computer programs, when executed,enable the processor to perform the features of various embodiments.Accordingly, such computer programs represent controllers of thecomputer system.

In various embodiments, software may be stored in a computer programproduct and loaded into computer system using removable storage drive,hard disk drive or communications interface. The control logic(software), when executed by the processor, causes the processor toperform the functions of various embodiments as described herein. Invarious embodiments, hardware components such as application specificintegrated circuits (ASICs). Implementation of the hardware statemachine so as to perform the functions described herein will be apparentto persons skilled in the relevant art(s).

In various embodiments, server 104 may include application servers (e.g.WEB SPHERE, WEB LOGIC, JBOSS). In various embodiments, the server mayinclude web servers (e.g. APACHE, IIS, GWS, SUN JAVA® SYSTEM WEBSERVER).

In various embodiments, components, modules, and/or engines of system100 may be implemented as micro-applications or micro-apps. Micro-appsare typically deployed in the context of a mobile operating system,including for example, a WINDOWS® mobile operating system, an ANDROID®Operating System, APPLE® IOS®, a BLACKBERRY® operating system and thelike. The micro-app may be configured to leverage the resources of thelarger operating system and associated hardware via a set ofpredetermined rules which govern the operations of various operatingsystems and hardware resources. For example, where a micro-app desiresto communicate with a device or network other than the mobile device ormobile operating system, the micro-app may leverage the communicationprotocol of the operating system and associated device hardware underthe predetermined rules of the mobile operating system. Moreover, wherethe micro-app desires an input from a user, the micro-app may beconfigured to request a response from the operating system whichmonitors various hardware components and then communicates a detectedinput from the hardware to the micro-app.

As used herein, the term “network” includes any cloud, cloud computingsystem or electronic communications system or method which incorporateshardware and/or software components. Communication among the parties maybe accomplished through any suitable communication channels, such as,for example, a telephone network, an extranet, an intranet, Internet,point of interaction device (point of sale device, personal digitalassistant (e.g., IPHONE®, BLACKBERRY®), cellular phone, kiosk, etc.),online communications, satellite communications, off-linecommunications, wireless communications, transponder communications,local area network (LAN), wide area network (WAN), virtual privatenetwork (VPN), networked or linked devices, keyboard, mouse and/or anysuitable communication or data input modality. Moreover, although thesystem is frequently described herein as being implemented with TCP/IPcommunications protocols, the system may also be implemented using IPX,APPLE®talk, IP-6, NetBIOS®, OSI, any tunneling protocol (e.g. IPsec,SSH), or any number of existing or future protocols. If the network isin the nature of a public network, such as the Internet, it may beadvantageous to presume the network to be insecure and open toeavesdroppers. Specific information related to the protocols, standards,and application software utilized in connection with the Internet isgenerally known to those skilled in the art and, as such, need not bedetailed herein. See, for example, DILIP NAIK, INTERNET STANDARDS ANDPROTOCOLS (1998); JAVA® 2 COMPLETE, various authors, (Sybex 1999);DEBORAH RAY AND ERIC RAY, MASTERING HTML 4.0 (1997); and LOSHIN, TCP/IPCLEARLY EXPLAINED (1997) and DAVID GOURLEY AND BRIAN TOTTY, HTTP, THEDEFINITIVE GUIDE (2002), the contents of which are hereby incorporatedby reference.

The various system components may be independently, separately orcollectively suitably coupled to the network via data links whichincludes, for example, a connection to an Internet Service Provider(ISP) over the local loop as is typically used in connection withstandard modem communication, cable modem, Dish Networks®, ISDN, DigitalSubscriber Line (DSL), or various wireless communication methods, see,e.g., GILBERT HELD, UNDERSTANDING DATA COMMUNICATIONS (1996), which ishereby incorporated by reference. It is noted that the network may beimplemented as other types of networks, such as an interactivetelevision (ITV) network. Moreover, the system contemplates the use,sale or distribution of any goods, services or information over anynetwork having similar functionality described herein.

“Cloud” or “Cloud computing” includes a model for enabling convenient,on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computingresources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services)that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal managementeffort or service provider interaction. Cloud computing may includelocation-independent computing, whereby shared servers provideresources, software, and data to computers and other devices on demand.For more information regarding cloud computing, see the NIST's (NationalInstitute of Standards and Technology) definition of cloud computing athttp://csrc.nist.gov/publications/nistpubs/800-145/SP800-145.pdf (lastvisited June 2012), which is hereby incorporated by reference in itsentirety.

As used herein, “transmit” may include sending electronic data from onesystem component to another over a network connection. Additionally, asused herein, “data” may include encompassing information such ascommands, queries, files, data for storage, and the like in digital orany other form.

The system contemplates uses in association with web services, utilitycomputing, pervasive and individualized computing, security and identitysolutions, autonomic computing, cloud computing, commodity computing,mobility and wireless solutions, open source, biometrics, grid computingand/or mesh computing.

Any databases discussed herein may include relational, hierarchical,graphical, or object-oriented structure and/or any other databaseconfigurations. Common database products that may be used to implementthe databases include DB2 by IBM® (Armonk, N.Y.), various databaseproducts available from ORACLE® Corporation (Redwood Shores, Calif.),MICROSOFT® Access® or MICROSOFT® SQL Server® by MICROSOFT® Corporation(Redmond, Washington), MySQL by MySQL AB (Uppsala, Sweden), or any othersuitable database product. Moreover, the databases may be organized inany suitable manner, for example, as data tables or lookup tables. Eachrecord may be a single file, a series of files, a linked series of datafields or any other data structure. Association of certain data may beaccomplished through any desired data association technique such asthose known or practiced in the art. For example, the association may beaccomplished either manually or automatically. Automatic associationtechniques may include, for example, a database search, a databasemerge, GREP, AGREP, SQL, using a key field in the tables to speedsearches, sequential searches through all the tables and files, sortingrecords in the file according to a known order to simplify lookup,and/or the like. The association step may be accomplished by a databasemerge function, for example, using a “key field” in pre-selecteddatabases or data sectors. Various database tuning steps arecontemplated to optimize database performance. For example, frequentlyused files such as indexes may be placed on separate file systems toreduce In/Out (“I/O”) bottlenecks.

More particularly, a “key field” partitions the database according tothe high-level class of objects defined by the key field. For example,certain types of data may be designated as a key field in a plurality ofrelated data tables and the data tables may then be linked on the basisof the type of data in the key field. The data corresponding to the keyfield in each of the linked data tables is preferably the same or of thesame type. However, data tables having similar, though not identical,data in the key fields may also be linked by using AGREP, for example.In accordance with one embodiment, any suitable data storage techniquemay be utilized to store data without a standard format. Data sets maybe stored using any suitable technique, including, for example, storingindividual files using an ISO/IEC 7816-4 file structure; implementing adomain whereby a dedicated file is selected that exposes one or moreelementary files containing one or more data sets; using data setsstored in individual files using a hierarchical filing system; data setsstored as records in a single file (including compression, SQLaccessible, hashed via one or more keys, numeric, alphabetical by firsttuple, etc.); Binary Large Object (BLOB); stored as ungrouped dataelements encoded using ISO/IEC 7816-6 data elements; stored as ungroupeddata elements encoded using ISO/IEC Abstract Syntax Notation (ASN.1) asin ISO/IEC 8824 and 8825; and/or other proprietary techniques that mayinclude fractal compression methods, image compression methods, etc.

One skilled in the art will also appreciate that, for security reasons,any databases, systems, devices, servers or other components of thesystem may consist of any combination thereof at a single location or atmultiple locations, wherein each database or system includes any ofvarious suitable security features, such as firewalls, access codes,encryption, decryption, compression, decompression, and/or the like.

Encryption may be used for communication over network 103 and/or network105. Encryption may be performed by way of any of the techniques nowavailable in the art or which may become available—e.g., Twofish, RSA,El Gamal, Schorr signature, DSA, PGP, PM, GPG (GnuPG), and symmetric andasymmetric cryptosystems.

The computing unit of the user device 102 and/or agent device 106 may befurther equipped with an Internet browser connected to the Internet oran intranet using standard dial-up, cable, DSL or any other Internetprotocol known in the art. Transactions originating at a web client maypass through a firewall in order to prevent unauthorized access fromusers of other networks. Further, additional firewalls may be deployedbetween the varying components of CMS to further enhance security.

Any of the communications, inputs, storage, databases or displaysdiscussed herein may be facilitated through a website having web pages.The term “web page” as it is used herein is not meant to limit the typeof documents and applications that might be used to interact with theuser. For example, a typical website might include, in addition tostandard HTML documents, various forms, JAVA® APPLE®ts, JAVASCRIPT,active server pages (ASP), common gateway interface scripts (CGI),extensible markup language (XML), dynamic HTML, cascading style sheets(CS S), AJAX (Asynchronous JAVASCRIPT And XML), helper applications,plug-ins, and the like. A server may include a web service that receivesa request from a web server, the request including a URL and an IPaddress (123.56.789.234). The web server retrieves the appropriate webpages and sends the data or applications for the web pages to the IPaddress. Web services are applications that are capable of interactingwith other applications over a communications means, such as theinternet. Web services are typically based on standards or protocolssuch as XML, SOAP, AJAX, WSDL and UDDI. Web services methods are wellknown in the art, and are covered in many standard texts. See, e.g.,ALEX NGHIEM, IT WEB SERVICES: A ROADMAP FOR THE ENTERPRISE (2003),hereby incorporated by reference.

Practitioners will also appreciate that there are a number of methodsfor displaying data within a browser-based document. Data may berepresented as standard text or within a fixed list, scrollable list,drop-down list, editable text field, fixed text field, pop-up window,and the like. Likewise, there are a number of methods available formodifying data in a web page such as, for example, free text entry usinga keyboard, selection of menu items, check boxes, option boxes, and thelike.

The system and method may be described herein in terms of functionalblock components, screen shots, optional selections and variousprocessing steps. It should be appreciated that such functional blocksmay be realized by any number of hardware and/or software componentsconfigured to perform the specified functions. For example, the systemmay employ various integrated circuit components, e.g., memory elements,processing elements, logic elements, look-up tables, and the like, whichmay carry out a variety of functions under the control of one or moremicroprocessors or other control devices. Similarly, the softwareelements of the system may be implemented with any programming orscripting language such as C, C++, C#, JAVA®, JAVASCRIPT, VBScript,Macromedia Cold Fusion, COBOL, MICROSOFT® Active Server Pages, assembly,PERL, PHP, awk, Python, Visual Basic, SQL Stored Procedures, PL/SQL, anyUNIX shell script, and extensible markup language (XML) with the variousalgorithms being implemented with any combination of data structures,objects, processes, routines or other programming elements. Further, itshould be noted that the system may employ any number of conventionaltechniques for data transmission, signaling, data processing, networkcontrol, and the like. Still further, the system could be used to detector prevent security issues with a client-side scripting language, suchas JAVASCRIPT, VBScript or the like. For a basic introduction ofcryptography and network security, see any of the following references:(1) “Applied Cryptography: Protocols, Algorithms, And Source Code In C,”by Bruce Schneier, published by John Wiley & Sons (second edition,1995); (2) “JAVA® Cryptography” by Jonathan Knudson, published byO′Reilly & Associates (1998); (3) “Cryptography & Network Security:Principles & Practice” by William Stallings, published by Prentice Hall;all of which are hereby incorporated by reference.

Each participant is equipped with a computing device in order tointeract with the system and facilitate online commerce transactions.The user has user devices 102 in the form of personal computers,laptops, notebooks, hand held computers, set-top boxes, cellulartelephones, touch-tone telephones and the like. The service provider hascomputing units implemented in the form of a server 104 and/or agentdevice 106, although other implementations are contemplated by thesystem.

As will be appreciated by one of ordinary skill in the art, the systemmay be embodied as a customization of an existing system, an add-onproduct, a processing apparatus executing upgraded software, astandalone system, a distributed system, a method, a data processingsystem, a device for data processing, and/or a computer program product.Accordingly, any portion of the system or a module may take the form ofa processing apparatus executing code, an internet based embodiment, anentirely hardware embodiment, or an embodiment combining aspects of theinternet, software and hardware. Furthermore, the system may take theform of a computer program product on a computer-readable storage mediumhaving computer-readable program code means embodied in the storagemedium. Any suitable computer-readable storage medium may be utilized,including hard disks, CD-ROM, optical storage devices, magnetic storagedevices, and/or the like.

The system and method is described herein with reference to screenshots, block diagrams and flowchart illustrations of methods, apparatus(e.g., systems), and computer program products according to variousembodiments. It will be understood that each functional block of theblock diagrams and the flowchart illustrations, and combinations offunctional blocks in the block diagrams and flowchart illustrations,respectively, can be implemented by computer program instructions.

These computer program instructions may be loaded onto a general purposecomputer, special purpose computer, or other programmable dataprocessing apparatus to produce a machine, such that the instructionsthat execute on the computer or other programmable data processingapparatus create means for implementing the functions specified in theflowchart block or blocks. These computer program instructions may alsobe stored in a computer-readable memory that can direct a computer orother programmable data processing apparatus to function in a particularmanner, such that the instructions stored in the computer-readablememory produce an article of manufacture including instruction meanswhich implement the function specified in the flowchart block or blocks.The computer program instructions may also be loaded onto a computer orother programmable data processing apparatus to cause a series ofoperational steps to be performed on the computer or other programmableapparatus to produce a computer-implemented process such that theinstructions which execute on the computer or other programmableapparatus provide steps for implementing the functions specified in theflowchart block or blocks.

Accordingly, functional blocks of the block diagrams and flowchartillustrations support combinations of means for performing the specifiedfunctions, combinations of steps for performing the specified functions,and program instruction means for performing the specified functions. Itwill also be understood that each functional block of the block diagramsand flowchart illustrations, and combinations of functional blocks inthe block diagrams and flowchart illustrations, can be implemented byeither special purpose hardware-based computer systems which perform thespecified functions or steps, or suitable combinations of specialpurpose hardware and computer instructions. Further, illustrations ofthe process flows and the descriptions thereof may make reference touser WINDOWS®, webpages, websites, web forms, prompts, etc.Practitioners will appreciate that the illustrated steps describedherein may comprise in any number of configurations including the use ofWINDOWS®, webpages, web forms, popup WINDOWS®, prompts and the like. Itshould be further appreciated that the multiple steps as illustrated anddescribed may be combined into single webpages and/or WINDOWS® but havebeen expanded for the sake of simplicity. In other cases, stepsillustrated and described as single process steps may be separated intomultiple webpages and/or WINDOWS® but have been combined for simplicity.

The term “non-transitory” is to be understood to remove only propagatingtransitory signals per se from the claim scope and does not relinquishrights to all standard computer-readable media that are not onlypropagating transitory signals per se. Stated another way, the meaningof the term “non-transitory computer-readable medium” and“non-transitory computer-readable storage medium” should be construed toexclude only those types of transitory computer-readable media whichwere found in In Re Nuijten to fall outside the scope of patentablesubject matter under 35 U.S.C. § 101.

Benefits, other advantages, and solutions to problems have beendescribed herein with regard to specific embodiments. However, thebenefits, advantages, solutions to problems, and any elements that maycause any benefit, advantage, or solution to occur or become morepronounced are not to be construed as critical, required, or essentialfeatures or elements of the disclosure. The scope of the disclosure isaccordingly to be limited by nothing other than the appended claims, inwhich reference to an element in the singular is not intended to mean“one and only one” unless explicitly so stated, but rather “one ormore.” Moreover, where a phrase similar to ‘at least one of A, B, and C’or ‘at least one of A, B, or C’ is used in the claims or specification,it is intended that the phrase be interpreted to mean that A alone maybe present in an embodiment, B alone may be present in an embodiment, Calone may be present in an embodiment, or that any combination of theelements A, B and C may be present in a single embodiment; for example,A and B, A and C, B and C, or A and B and C.

Although the disclosure includes a method, it is contemplated that itmay be embodied as computer program instructions on a tangiblecomputer-readable carrier, such as a magnetic or optical memory or amagnetic or optical disk. All structural, chemical, and functionalequivalents to the elements of the above-described various embodimentsthat are known to those of ordinary skill in the art are expresslyincorporated herein by reference and are intended to be encompassed bythe present claims. Moreover, it is not necessary for a device or methodto address each and every problem sought to be solved by the presentdisclosure, for it to be encompassed by the present claims. Furthermore,no element, component, or method step in the present disclosure isintended to be dedicated to the public regardless of whether theelement, component, or method step is explicitly recited in the claims.No claim element herein is to be construed under the provisions of 35U.S.C. 112 (f) unless the element is expressly recited using the phrase“means for.” As used herein, the terms “comprises”, “comprising”, or anyother variation thereof, are intended to cover a non-exclusiveinclusion, such that a process, method, article, or apparatus thatcomprises a list of elements does not include only those elements butmay include other elements not expressly listed or inherent to suchprocess, method, article, or apparatus.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method, comprising: initiating, by at least onecomputing device, communications over an synchronous communicationchannel between a first computing device and a second computing device;responsive to the communications being discontinued on the synchronouscommunication channel, retaining, by the at least one computing device,a context of communications exchanged between the first computing deviceand the second computing device in the synchronous communicationchannel; receiving, by the at least one computing device, anasynchronous message from the first computing device, the asynchronousmessage being directed to the second computing device; sending, by theat least one computing device, invitations to the first computing deviceand the second computing device, the invitations inviting the firstcomputing device and the second computing device to rejoin thesynchronous communication channel; and in response to the firstcomputing device and the second computing device rejoining thesynchronous communication channel, retrieving, by the at least onecomputing device, the context of communications previously exchangedbetween the first computing device and the second computing device inthe synchronous communication channel and presenting the context ofcommunications to the first computing device and the second computingdevice.
 2. The method of claim 1, wherein the asynchronous message iscommunicated via a text-based communication protocol.
 3. The method ofclaim 1, wherein the synchronous communication channel comprises anonline chat session.
 4. The method of claim 1, wherein the context ofcommunications comprises at least one of: a timestamp, at least one username, a first identification of users joining the communication channel,or a second identification of the users leaving the communicationchannel.
 5. The method of claim 1, wherein the context of communicationscomprises at least a message history of communications between the firstcomputing device and the second computing device over the synchronouscommunication channel.
 6. The method of claim 1, further comprisingretaining, by the at least one computing device, a device identifier forthe first computing device in response to the synchronous communicationchannel being discontinued.
 7. The method of claim 1, further comprisingdeleting, by the at least one computing device, the context ofcommunications from a database in response to determining that thesynchronous communication channel has been dormant of activity for apredetermined amount of time.
 8. A system, comprising: a processor; andmachine-readable instructions stored in a memory and executable by theprocessor, wherein, when executed, the machine-readable instructionscause the processor to at least: initiate communications over ansynchronous communication channel between a first computing device and asecond computing device; responsive to the communications beingdiscontinued on the synchronous communication channel, retain a contextof communications exchanged between the first computing device and thesecond computing device in the synchronous communication channel;receive an asynchronous message from the first computing device, theasynchronous message being directed to the second computing device; sendinvitations to the first computing device and the second computingdevice, the invitations inviting the first computing device and thesecond computing device to rejoin the synchronous communication channel;and in response to the first computing device and the second computingdevice rejoin the synchronous communication channel, retrieving thecontext of communications previously exchanged between the firstcomputing device and the second computing device in the synchronouscommunication channel and presenting the context of communications tothe first computing device and the second computing device.
 9. Thesystem of claim 8, wherein the asynchronous message is communicated viaa text-based communication protocol.
 10. The system of claim 8, whereinthe synchronous communication channel comprises an online chat session.11. The system of claim 8, wherein the context of communicationscomprises at least one of: a timestamp, at least one user name, a firstidentification of users joining the communication channel, or a secondidentification of the users leaving the communication channel.
 12. Thesystem of claim 8, wherein the context of communications comprises atleast a message history of communications between the first computingdevice and the second computing device over the synchronouscommunication channel.
 13. The system of claim 8, wherein themachine-readable instructions further cause the processor to retain adevice identifier for the first computing device in response to thesynchronous communication channel being discontinued.
 14. The system ofclaim 8, wherein the machine-readable instructions further cause theprocessor to delete the context of communications from a database inresponse to determining that the synchronous communication channel hasbeen dormant of activity for a predetermined amount of time.
 15. Anon-transitory computer-readable medium comprising a program executableon a computing device, wherein, when executed, the program causes thecomputing device to at least: initiate communications over ansynchronous communication channel between a first computing device and asecond computing device; responsive to the communications beingdiscontinued on the synchronous communication channel, retain a contextof communications exchanged between the first computing device and thesecond computing device in the synchronous communication channel;receive an asynchronous message from the first computing device, theasynchronous message being directed to the second computing device; sendinvitations to the first computing device and the second computingdevice, the invitations inviting the first computing device and thesecond computing device to rejoin the synchronous communication channel;and in response to the first computing device and the second computingdevice rejoin the synchronous communication channel, retrieving thecontext of communications previously exchanged between the firstcomputing device and the second computing device in the synchronouscommunication channel and presenting the context of communications tothe first computing device and the second computing device.
 16. Thenon-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 15, wherein theasynchronous message is communicated via a text-based communicationprotocol and the synchronous communication channel comprises an onlinechat session.
 17. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim15, wherein the context of communications comprises at least one of: atimestamp, at least one user name, a first identification of usersjoining the communication channel, or a second identification of theusers leaving the communication channel.
 18. The non-transitorycomputer-readable medium of claim 15, wherein the context ofcommunications comprises at least a message history of communicationsbetween the first computing device and the second computing device overthe synchronous communication channel.
 19. The non-transitorycomputer-readable medium of claim 15, wherein the machine-readableinstructions further cause the processor to retain a device identifierfor the first computing device in response to the synchronouscommunication channel being discontinued.
 20. The non-transitorycomputer-readable medium of claim 15, wherein the machine-readableinstructions further cause the processor to delete the context ofcommunications from a database in response to determining that thesynchronous communication channel has been dormant of activity for apredetermined amount of time.